The Dirty Projectors released their 7" Ascending Melody for free via download this week. 20 people who download it will also be randomly selected to receive the vinyl. These tracks were laid down during the Bitte Orca sessions but didn't make the final cut.
http://www.dirtyprojectors.net/
The bad:
Pat Robertson is a horse's ass. The man can't help but insert his foot into his mouth whenever he flaps his lips to speak about tragedy. It's like he's got steel toes and a magnet in his palate. This week the radical evangelical cleric blamed the earthquake in Haiti on an apocryphal pact supposedly entered into over 200 years ago with Satan in a voodoo ceremony, freeing the island of French control in return for 200 years of servitude to the prince of darkness. He is referencing the Boukman ceremony that Dutty Boukman is alleged to have held at Bois Caiman in 1791 which sparked the revolt that culminated in Haiti's independence, (By the way, said lease would have expired in 1991, Pat.) Fault lines have nothing to do with it, just God grinding an axe with women, children, and men wholly unresponsible for an act that happened long before they were born and many scholars doubt even really took place. Congratulations 700 Club, it only took you 14 days to prove you're still a bunch of jerks in 2010.
Robertson is well known for his laughable predictions that always, always, always turn out false. The man's clearly not a prophet. Maybe God's telling you to shut your trap, Pat. Obviously embarrassment and chagrin should've had stilled your cruel tongue long ago. WWJD? I'm pretty sure he'd cancel the 700 Club.
Not one to let the jerk spotlight shine anywhere but on his jerk-itude, right-wing propagandha meister and blatant racist (remembe he got canned for declaring Donovan McNabb a no-talent hack bolstered by affirmative action) Rush Limbaugh described Haiti as a "made to order" disaster for Obama. He said the relief effort would be used to "burnish" the Obama image among the "light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country." What, you mean not waiting and watching people drown and "loot" and suffer after a major natural disaster before you send in the emergency relief workers might be a popular move? Who'da thunk it? Well...
You know what? I think people of all colors worldwide are applauding Obama's no-hesitation response to the tragedy in Haiti. The viral efforts to raise money through twitter and facebook have been outstanding. But you know what jolly ol' Dittohead says about giving to charity? DON'T. He encouraged his listeners not to contribute a dime to relief efforts in Haiti because American "tax dollars" fully fund our relief efforts.
Gotta hand it to you, Limbaugh. I didn't think anybody could be more insensitive about the Haitian earthquake than Pat Robertson but you took the cake. So much so that professional conservative meanie Pat Buchanan, no big fan of all things liberal and progressive, publicy chastised your comments as "cynical" and "insensitive." When Buchanan calls you out for being heartless, you know you're a stone-cold bastard.
The Mind-blowing:
A couple of U.K. scientists sent out about 4,000 surveys to British women age 22-83 (average age 55) and got back about 1,800 responses concerning their self-reported sexual experiences. Upon analysing the women's answer to the question if they believe they have "the" g spot and report of achieveing orgasm through intercourse, these scientists declared the g spot a "myth" in the pages of the Journal of Sexual Medicine this month.
Setting aside the methodoligal problems (surveys versus anatomical analysis? really?), I've got to applaud this team for continuing unabatedly and enthusiastically the 2000+ year tradition of murky (male) science which obscures, covers up, distorts, stigmatizes and pathologizes female sexual pleasure and female desire. Pick up Rachel Maines' The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction for an excellent history of this tradition.
Here's my take away. Ultrasounds, heat imaging scans, "hands on" lab tests (that's a joke; really, read the Maines' book) can only reveal so much about female sexuality with their scientific and anatomy-centric approaches. The question we as a soceity should ask ourselves is why do we care if there's "really" a g spot or not? What difference does it make? If you or a lover can press a spot one-third of the way up the front of your vaginal wall and induce cataclysmic, volcanic, earth-shattering, mind-blowing, leg-shaking, sheet-shredding, screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs pleasure, does it really matter whether a bunch of research scientists in a London lab think there's a unique anatomical structure to which this "response" can be reduced? I think the answer is pretty clear. And if you're not built with an ecstasy button in said place, does that mean the g spot is just a myth? Who really cares? I think Petra Boynton's advice is particularly salient on this topic.
But for women, how much does it matter whether the G-spot exists? While I’m usually keen to advocate that we follow what science has to tell us, in this case the presence or absence of a G-spot has caused confusion and anxiety, and perhaps we might be better served by exploring what feels good.
It’s generally accepted that some women enjoy vaginal stimulation by finger, penis, or sex toy. Just as it’s understood that some women are turned on by clitoral, anal, breast, or other stimulation. We’re often encouraged by women’s magazines and self-help markets to focus on specific areas (G-spots, clitoris, or anal penetration), so we miss the excitement that can be experienced from exploring the whole body and combinations of erogenous zones—for example, enjoying vaginal penetration alongside clitoral stimulation. Rather than arguing over G-spots, perhaps the best thing science can responsibly do is remind women to explore all opportunities for pleasure.
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